Working name of prolific, award-winning UK Comic-strip artist David Chester Gibbons (1949- ); using a bold, firm line style, he specializes in the Superhero genre. Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, he trained as a surveyor and began his artistic career providing Illustrations and strips for fanzines. He turned professional in 1973, drawing The Wriggling Wrecker for the D C Thompson comic Wizard. Further strips with an sf flavour followed until, in 1975, he began work on the Nigerian superhero Powerman, his monthly 16pp episodes alternating with those by Brian Bolland to produce a fortnightly publication schedule. Gibbons was one of the initial team of artists on 2000 AD, drawing Harlem Heroes and Robusters and co-creating Rogue Trooper with writer Gerry Finley-Day.

Gibbons drew a number of Doctor Who episodes for the UK division of Marvel Comics, and in 1981 began a long association with the US publisher DC Comics, drawing The Creeper, 12 issues of Green Lantern and a Superman tale called "For the Man Who Has Everything" (1985), written by Alan Moore. Arguably his greatest achievement, also written by Moore, has been the phenomenally successful Watchmen (12-vol series 1986-1987; graph 1987; with additional material 1988); this Alternate-History superhero story, rich in semiotics, won a special category for Best Other Forms in the 1988 Hugo Awards (see Hugo for discussion of this category).

Gibbons's next major project was Give Me Liberty (graph 1990), written by Frank Miller, a satirical tale of American Dystopias. Gibbons and Miller returned to the universe of this series several more times over the following two decades, and the entire series was collected in 2010 as The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the 21st Century (graph coll 2010).

Also in the 1990s Gibbons began to establish himself as a comics writer with a Superman/Batman team-up (1991), a Batman vs Predator comic book (1992) and World's Finest (1993), all for DC. His most notable work of the twenty-first century is the underappreciated black-and-white Alternate HistoryGraphic NovelThe Originals (graph 2004), which he wrote and drew. He has also returned to the ongoing Green Lantern series from time to time. [RT/JP]

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